I have been looking into this just for some amusement (I lead a dull life sometimes and have a need to fill it with mindless trivia). Spoke to a local printer and to do a run of 100 maps at a good size and quality on a game board would cost a lot of money. It comes down with more but I doubt more would sell of any particular map. On top of that, counters, dice, rules booklet need to be produced. This all comes to around to more than I have.

So the site has 2 choices. Allow map makers to sell the maps or give them away for free on the site.

or

Go to one of the trade shows and try to get one of the major companies to set up the game and give CC part of the profit.

At my university, for $10 I can print a 4'x9' (1.2 m x 2.7 m) glossy, photo-quality image. That's 36 sq. ft. (3.3 sq. m). That's big enough for probably a few maps. Then add in a bit of money to buy some foam board or whatever to glue that "poster" on to. That's if I was doing this myself. I would think that you could make these for commercial purposes for maybe $5 / map. Charge $10 and throw in some cards and you've got yourself a business.

The problem is with print quality. I can guarantee that after a year or two, the map printed like that would start to fade. Leave it on a table for a week if you are playing a large game, by a window and you will see a noticeable difference.

This is the biggest problem. How to get a board made of good enough quality that players will buy it, but not so expensive so as players say no to it. I printed up my map on A2 card to see how it would look and is it big enough to play on. That cost me 350 forints. A grand total of $1.62. But after 1 game, the board had a couple of scuffs on it. Would you pay, say 10 dollars for a good board to have that after 1 game?

koontz1973 wrote:The problem is with print quality. I can guarantee that after a year or two, the map printed like that would start to fade. Leave it on a table for a week if you are playing a large game, by a window and you will see a noticeable difference.

This is the biggest problem. How to get a board made of good enough quality that players will buy it, but not so expensive so as players say no to it. I printed up my map on A2 card to see how it would look and is it big enough to play on. That cost me 350 forints. A grand total of $1.62. But after 1 game, the board had a couple of scuffs on it. Would you pay, say 10 dollars for a good board to have that after 1 game?

I personally would want something at least as durable as the board game that already exists. Either that or laminated. You can't beat laminated.

Funkyterrance beat me to it, but I was thinking that you could laminate the thing. I have no idea how much that costs. But even if it's a few dollars, that still means that I could do this personally for under about $10 per board. It wouldn't be as professional looking as an actual board game, but it would do the trick.

agentcom wrote:Funkyterrance beat me to it, but I was thinking that you could laminate the thing. I have no idea how much that costs. But even if it's a few dollars, that still means that I could do this personally for under about $10 per board. It wouldn't be as professional looking as an actual board game, but it would do the trick.

Laminate would work fine for keeping the board clean and safe.

Problems to overcome.

Persuade map makers to reproduce maps.

Convince the site to allow us to make money of you lot.

Get players to buy the damn things in enough of a quantity to make it worth while.

How should the maps be done, through the foundry as it is done now, or have a completely separate section for this to be done in. Who would do it? Original map makers or someone new? Copyrights need to be addressed. I did my one and gave it to CC players to see if it could be done but also as I enjoy doing it. But I very much doubt you would get many to do it. And what about old maps where the map maker is no longer available to ask?

I think we would just have to see who is willing. Maybe not every map would be available.

Convince the site to allow us to make money of you lot.

That's up to the powers that be, but I wouldn't think there would be too much of a problem with this. But I could be dead wrong. Figuring out whether and how to do this will probably hold this idea up for a long time.

Get players to buy the damn things in enough of a quantity to make it worth while.

If they could be produced cheaply enough, the quantity wouldn't matter so much. Higher quality ones, yeah, we'd have to probably significantly limit the options

How should the maps be done, through the foundry as it is done now, or have a completely separate section for this to be done in. Who would do it?

I think the mapmakers would do it. I was thinking about this whole thing as being relatively informal. Basically, whoever wanted to create HQ versions of their own maps could and the site would facilitate the transaction. The site could contract out for it or even one of the users could run a small business (probably not very profitable) getting these things to the print shop and out to the users. In the latter case, the site (maybe as simply as through the forum) would just kind of be a store front or advertiser of this option. Is that kind of what you all were picturing or were you thinking something more official?

Original map makers or someone new? Copyrights need to be addressed.

Absolutely. It's my understanding that the mapmakers only gave the site the rights to use the map for online game play. The mapmakers who aren't around anymore ... well, I think their maps are dead for the purposes of this idea.

I did my one and gave it to CC players to see if it could be done but also as I enjoy doing it. But I very much doubt you would get many to do it. And what about old maps where the map maker is no longer available to ask?

I think that you'd find a few mapmakers who either are willing to let someone else supersize their map or are willing to do it themselves. I think a lot of them would do it for free just like they do now. But if the site is going to charge more than what covers its expenses, I think that it's fair to send a little bit of that off to them. But again I'm not the one who gets to make that decision.

So how do we go about doing this, if map makers make the image and send it via PM to anyone who buys it, what is stopping them from giving it to the whole clan or anyone on a PM list? If we print it up and have it posted out, that will make the cost spiral.

Considering that most people don't have access to large printers like I and some others do, I would think that somebody would have to be in charge of making the actual boards. Obviously a few people here think it would be nice if the site did the production and shipping. The site would encourage it with the extra stamp and some $$. But you all know how long it takes suggestions to go through the process. If you wanted this to happen sooner rather than later, it would probably be best for some enterprising (or, more likely, charitable) individual to take this over off-site and hope we can bring it on-site later. The benefit to a mapmaker from doing this would be that I imagine the first person to enter the market is going to sell a few more maps than if he had waited, no matter which map that first one is.

That's for the hard-copies anyway. For the digital copies, the mapmakers could do this easier, but you're right about the difficulty in policing intellectual property on the internet ... just ask the music industry.

You could print, laminate and roll up a map and ship it in one of those architect/poster cylinder things and probably charge $10 and make a couple bucks per map. Oh and throw some cards in there, too. Or cut up the printout and paste it onto some type of folding foam board or card board and ship it in a box.

Board games usually cost like $20 anyway. This wouldn't be as nice as a professional boardgame, but it does have a factor of uniqueness to it. So mapmakers (or the site) might even be able to charge more than $10.

Once our new Chief gets finished with whatever transitional stuff he's still doing, I'll try to pass this idea along to him. But that's a pretty open-ended timeframe.

If a mapmaker will give me any map, don't care which one, in a large format, I will get a prototype made of the "fathead" vinyl idea I posted earlier. This is a thick vinyl that should hold up fine, like the kind used in auto decals and such. It would be better than laminating in my opinion. Plus it could be stuck to the wall for you nerds that want to display the map when not in use.

I think it would be unique and probably more desirable than laminated paper, which to me screams cheap.

So what did anyone figure the cost might be for one of these maps?I just got a risk game at a second-hand shop the other day(my old board lives at my parent's house) and while the board is newish and pretty lame, the pieces are allright. I've got money sitting in paypal too so this would be the perfect time for me to get into this.

Funkyterrance wrote:So what did anyone figure the cost might be for one of these maps?I just got a risk game at a second-hand shop the other day(my old board lives at my parent's house) and while the board is newish and pretty lame, the pieces are allright. I've got money sitting in paypal too so this would be the perfect time for me to get into this.

new maps like these would definitely spark the interest of my friends who I play board games with. I bet you could just print them out in high def and place them on a peice of cardboard.

Funkyterrance wrote:So what did anyone figure the cost might be for one of these maps?I just got a risk game at a second-hand shop the other day(my old board lives at my parent's house) and while the board is newish and pretty lame, the pieces are allright. I've got money sitting in paypal too so this would be the perfect time for me to get into this.

new maps like these would definitely spark the interest of my friends who I play board games with. I bet you could just print them out in high def and place them on a peice of cardboard.

Yeah, I guess the issue is that the maps get fuzzy when you blow them up and they would be too small for the pieces the size they are now. I'd like the board to be close to or even larger than the board game, depending on the map. Like I play a lot of Poison Rome and there is virtually no space for pieces on that map. I suppose one downside to this is that some maps just wouldn't work since you can't put numbers on the board spaces, you have to put a bunch of little figures.